Age of Sigmar Rumor Roundup

[Mr Mystery]

My idea of a fun game is that both sides have a decent chance of winning. How do I not unintentionally unbalance the game, especially in smaller games that I prefer

Discuss it with your opponent.

[Path Walker]

it is going to be a nightmare balancing armies for people who do want a competitive game

I think GW and i agree that this is the competitive players problem now, not ours.

[Kirsten]

it is a pretty stupid move. wanting a competitive, balanced match is not some sort of personality flaw. you can have a perfectly relaxed, fun, game between two people with equal points who don't care about winning.

[grimmas]

Yay after a hard morning downloading and reading the, let's face it, substantially more than 4 pages of rules I believe we can cancel the apocalypse it all looks rather nice. I believe I may have a way of organising things in a more sensible way for competive play that is really rather easy. I need to do quite a lot more more checking and testing though I will put sonething up if it works.

[Al Shut]

Then don't unbalance the game?

Discuss it with your opponent.

I don't know how because there is nothing to go by aside from highly unreliable model count and my opponent is as clueless as me.

I'm talking about stuff like are 20 models enough for the unit or should I take 30, do I add another Ratling gun to even stand a chance againt my opponent or do I already have enough units and more would make the game unfair.

Am I really supposed to discuss every single unit choice with someone who is as interested in winning the game as I am?

[StingrayP226]

Discussing it with an opponent for balance is a TERRIBLE way to set up a game. Why? Because everyone has a different opinion on what is balance. Even non competitive players like to have a little balance.

For example lets take the new 40K Eldar codex. There were people saying it was grossly unbalanced, some said unbalanced but not auto-win, and then you had the ones (often Eldar players) saying it was perfectly balanced. Many of them were not being hostile or rude it was just how they perceived things. Depending on someone's favorite tactics/army their perspective is skewed so what person A thinks is balanced will not equal what person B thinks is balanced. Now without ANY sort of baseline (points/force limits) two players need to reach an agreement on what to play is going to be very hard. Once they finally agree on a game "size" (which now you have no base line for) they have to agree that their two armies are equal in strength, but depending on perspective this could turn a simple trying to have a good game into a balance discussion. If its two people just playing to roll dice and have fun with plastic toys... ok no limits is acceptable, but for any players who want to have fun and play a challenging game where both players feel like they have a chance to win with their tactics... it needs some balance to allow tactics to influence the game.

Sorry to all those Games Workshop fans until death but if this IS the new fantasy game (IE not just the starter rule set). Games Workshop just handed you the laziest rule set ever designed. Writing rules can be a little tough at times (easier now with so many other games to borrow ideas/concepts from), but the real challenge of any game is trying to balance it. A poorly balanced game is a poorly made game. It can have some good concepts, but if the creator leaves out one of the core components of a good game (some level of balance) just because they cannot be bothered with it, its pure laziness. I mean all they needed to do is take what they have written, tested them some, and give them point costs dependent of their performance compared to others and then you would have SOME level of balance. No rule rewrites or another page on the rule book. Just some time and effort...

As someone who plays several game systems the level of excitement over what appears to be a half finished (we hope), or worse half ***ed product is shocking.

[Path Walker]

By not even attempting the balance it, they've bypassed it completely and left it open for the players to sort out how they want it for a particular game. Balance is not a core component of a game. Fun is though, and this system is fun.

People are also thinking of things on old terms, a Cannon and some Hammerers took out a Keeper of Secrets in a turn, big things are much easier to knock wounds off than they were before, yeah, Archeon will kill 20 Grots if he gets in close but a few Spear Chukkas will put the hurt on him, the old stats are gone.

This is wargaming as GW have always preferred it, as a thing to use your collection of models for.

If you want a challenging and tactical balanced wargame, go elsewhere.

[Al Shut]

Oh, I'll do, that's what all the complaining ultimately boils down to.

[40kGamer]

it is a pretty stupid move. wanting a competitive, balanced match is not some sort of personality flaw. you can have a perfectly relaxed, fun, game between two people with equal points who don't care about winning.

Exactly. I have zero interest in building some over the top, sneaky rules exploiting army but I do want to have a way to balance the stupid game without going round and round with my opponent before playing. It'll only even work if you are playing in a tight circle, otherwise it's going to be more aggravation than fun. And the reason no points values works fine with a lot of historical games is that the players are usually building their armies from the exact same pool of units and there are no special abilities.

I will give games workshop full props for one thing. We've heard the "we're a model company not a game company" mantra forever and now we have actual proof that they truly believe this statement... and at some point they're spot on. If I see models I like from this I'll buy them even though at the moment I have no intention of wasting any time on these game mechanics.

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Its a game for people who have the maturity to play a game for its own sake, because its not even trying to be balanced competitively, you can't break it, there isn't any point to breaking it.

I'm so happy with it, even more for the sweet salty tears of nerd rage.

Again, 12 year olds are the target demo. Get that sweet Christmas and Birthday money.

I believe you. 12 year olds are the only people I can see playing a game where you insult your opponent for a bonus, have both sides of a conversation with one of you heroes or carry around a mirror. Someone will need to start selling the fake moustaches for the young imperial players though since they don't shave just yet and hopefully none of the abilities hinge on consuming ale.

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Yup. I don't know what to make of it, if only because I just woke up and nothing makes any sense. Not going to base my opinion on some guy from a painting blog I've never heard of who doesn't like it because it doesn't meet his arbitrary and subjective definitions of what the laws of tabletop gaming are.

Fair enough. But they must have done all of this to get new blood into their company and with that in mind this game makes no sense at all. Having a mechanism to build roughly equivalent armies is well established in the wargaming community so the bulk of this group of people are not going to be amused by this game. Boardgame players like structure even more than wargamers so having a total free for all like this won't get them excited... and new people may try it, but being new have zero idea on how to balance a game and could easily be put off by a couple unintended one sided matches. I just see no reason for them to not have some balancing mechanic that people can use as a guideline, and I really hope there is more to come.

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Reading the rules for Age of Sigmar, I'm amazed; they're basically everything good from Epic Space Marine 2nd edition!

This is weird. That was a great game system. I might actually get into this.

Big might, but still, might.

2nd Ed EPIC... One of my favorite GW games! The big difference is that it has a specific army design mechanic with cards, unit sizes and points values. It is easy, elegant and fun while this is more of a hot mess.

[Al Shut]

And by the way, I know probably nobody here cares but the German rules are almost unreadable with their crude mix of German and English. Worse than ever before.